Chapter 453

Jinling City, Yinghua Gate.

A carriage drove into the city at a leisurely pace; the driver was a young man wearing coarse hemp clothes.

The carriage curtain was lifted, revealing a woman's delicate and clean face; one could vaguely see her tall and graceful figure.

Tied to the back of the carriage were two old wooden chests with mottled paint, common household items often seen in simple families.

Ever since the city ended its three-day massive search, the thirteen gates of Jinling had lifted the blockade and martial law, and the common people had returned to their usual busy comings and goings.

Although the city guards would still inspect suspicious persons, they let most ordinary people pass directly.

This pair of man and woman driving into the city was no different from an ordinary village couple; mixed in the crowd, they did not attract any attention.

Naturally, no city guards went to specifically search the carriage.

The carriage entered the city gate smoothly and walked on the wide streets of Jinling City.

The woman in the carriage half-lifted the curtain, and the man on the carriage shaft said: "Those people from the workshop must be searching for our tracks outside the city.

If we enter the city with our carriage and pass through it, we can easily avoid them; those people have taboos and dare not enter the city in such a swaggering manner.

The shopkeeper made arrangements outside Taiping Gate; if we go there now, naturally someone will meet us."

The woman glanced at the wooden chests stacked at the back of the carriage and asked: "Where did the shopkeeper tell us to take the Englishman?"

The young man waved his horsewhip and skillfully flicked a loud whip crack, no different from a seasoned carriage driver.

Only under the bright sunlight, the missing little finger on his right hand was somewhat conspicuous.

He said: "The shopkeeper told us to go out to sea first to avoid the limelight for a while, and when the time is right, head north to the Love Shenjing!"

In the western suburbs of Jinling City, seven or eight fast horses left the foot of Zhong Shan and galloped along the official road in the suburbs, searching.

The new-style Lumie muskets they had originally carried on their backs had been put into specially made cloth bags and tied to their saddles to avoid attracting attention.

Ever since they discovered that Henry, the English gunsmith from the workshop, had been abducted during the chaos, they had been out of the valley searching for an hour.

Originally, they could still track them along the way based on the wheel ruts and hoof prints at the Jiashan intersection, but just as they were about to leave the foot of the mountain, they completely lost the other party's tracks again.

It seemed that there was an expert in the other party's team who was very good at hiding tracks, disrupting the direction of their pursuit along the way.

A group of people stopped their horses at a fork in the road, somewhat at a loss.

One of the riders said to the young man in the lead: "Boss Sun, judging by the situation, the other party must have escaped without a trace; it will be difficult for us to catch up again."

The young man in the lead was in his twenties, tall, with a straight nose and broad mouth, slightly protruding cheekbones, and bright eyes; he was usually shrewd, but now he was also wandering and helpless.

He thought of the terrible consequences that might be triggered by the abduction of that English gunsmith, and a chill ran through his heart.

But given the current situation, there was undoubtedly no hope of catching the person back, and if they continued to search aimlessly and waste time, it was not a wise move.

He gritted his teeth and said to the rider beside him: "Henry has been abducted; just in case, the workshop in the valley must be relocated as soon as possible.

You go into the city to find a place where we can settle temporarily, and hire more carriages and horses for transport."

After receiving the order, the man turned his horse's head and galloped toward the Yinghua Gate in the west of Jinling City.

The young man in the lead said to the other riders: "We will return to the workshop immediately and direct the men to prepare for relocation."

Jinling, Yinghua Gate.

A large number of Embroidered Uniform Guard soldiers and a hundred musket soldiers rode out of the city, heading toward the foot of Zhong Shan in the western suburbs.

For the sake of speed, after receiving Liu Hai's report, Jia Cong and the others did not even wait until the next day; although the sun had passed its zenith, they immediately mustered the troops to advance and suppress them.

Just after they left the city, the Five Cities Military Office took emergency action and imposed martial law on the three gates facing west in Jinling City.

Within an hour, the three western gates were completely closed, and the entry and exit of all common people were restricted.

One hour was enough for Jia Cong and Ge Ge Zhi Cheng to bring the Embroidered Uniform Guard and musket soldiers to the private firearm workshop discovered by Liu Hai.

Within an hour, the three western gates were forbidden to enter or exit, which also cut off the possibility of information being passed inside and outside the city.

Although Jia Cong was suspicious of Ge Ge Zhi Cheng's intentions in this matter, his intention to use this to implicate the Zhen family was already very obvious.

Coupled with the setback the Embroidered Uniform Guard had just suffered from Du Du Hengxin's assassination, Jia Cong could guess some of the reasons why this terrified chief official of the Jinling Embroidered Uniform Guard would act in such a manner.

He informed Guo Lin and himself of this matter; as the Inspector of the Firearm Office, he commanded eight hundred musket soldiers, so he could not remain indifferent to this matter.

If he did not lead troops to assist in the suppression, he feared it would leave a huge handle for others to falsely accuse him of being related to this private firearm workshop.

He easily figured out that Ge Ge Zhi Cheng was intentionally letting him and Guo Lin help him take the fall, which made him very unhappy and filled him with great resentment toward this Embroidered Uniform Guard Battalion Commander.

However, the fact that the Embroidered Uniform Guard had discovered this private firearm workshop must be absolutely true; Jia Cong did not trust Ge Ge Zhi Cheng, but he could still trust Liu Hai.

As the first person to advocate for firearms in the Great Zhou, he had argued strongly to Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao about the concept of strengthening the army with firearms and using firearms to protect the nation.

Naturally, he knew better than anyone else that if firearms were to spread among the common people, it would cause huge disasters.

Therefore, wiping out such a private firearm workshop, tracing the root of the matter, and deterring the wicked was imperative.

And according to Liu Hai's report on the number of people and the guard situation at the firearm workshop in the valley, the hundred-plus musket soldiers led by Jia Cong, plus the two companies of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, were enough to easily wipe them out.

The team of several hundred people spent less than an hour reaching the valley discovered by Liu Hai, stopping at a distance of five hundred paces from the Jiashan intersection.

Jia Cong distributed the personnel in a familiar manner, leaving twenty musket soldiers at the Jiashan intersection to be responsible for guarding and alerting, while the others entered the valley in batches from different directions.

Attacking the unprepared with the prepared, and possessing an absolute advantage in numbers and firepower, this encirclement and suppression had no suspense.

The ten-plus musket-wielding guards guarding the firearm workshop in the valley discovered the appearance of a large number of government troops, but it was already too late, and they had lost the opportunity to escape.

But these gunmen still fiercely fired first, fierce and ruthless, unlike ordinary people; one did not know where the owner who built this firearm workshop had recruited these desperate scoundrels.

However, in the face of such a disparity in strength, no amount of determination and bravery was of any use; moreover, they were facing the well-trained musket soldiers of the Five Armies Camp.

Jia Cong only ordered one round of volley fire, and more than half of the ten-plus workshop guards were killed, leaving only a few living captives with serious injuries.

Except for the musket guards who resisted arrest, a total of twenty-nine craftsmen of various types and four handymen in the entire workshop were all captured, with none escaping.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard also found thirty new-style Lumie muskets that had been assembled in the workshop; after Jia Cong's testing, their quality reached the level of the construction workshop in the Love Shenjing.

These were thirty new-style Lumie muskets with reliable lethal firepower.

In addition, they found two long wooden chests in the warehouse, filled with top-quality furs from the north; the wooden chests had the words "Deng Hongchun Fur Shop" on them, which should be the name of a fur shop.

Jia Cong felt slightly strange; the winter in Jinling was not as bitterly cold as in the Love Shenjing, and here, except for wealthy families, ordinary people could rarely afford top-quality furs.

These furs were actually placed in the warehouse of a musket workshop, which seemed strange no matter how one looked at it, so he had the musket soldiers carefully inspect the chests.

As the furs in the chests were all taken out, they found seven new-style Lumie muskets at the bottom of the chests; the surfaces of the muskets had obvious wear and tear and should have been used for a long time.

Jia Cong found serial numbers on these semi-old Lumie muskets, and he could not help but be greatly surprised.

He had once commanded the Firearm Camp in Liaodong and was very familiar with the musket serial numbers of the Liaodong Firearm Camp; judging from these serial numbers, these seven muskets were indeed from the Liaodong Firearm Camp.

Jia Cong immediately thought of the origin of these muskets and had the musket soldiers thoroughly search the warehouse, soon finding two more muskets that had been completely disassembled.

The serial numbers of these two muskets indicated that they also came from the Liaodong Firearm Camp.

There were exactly nine muskets in total; Jia Cong truly had not expected that the nine new-style Lumie muskets stolen from the Liaodong Firearm Camp would actually appear here.

Seeing those two disassembled new-style Lumie muskets, Jia Cong quickly deduced the ins and outs of the matter.

Someone had stolen nine new-style Lumie muskets from the Liaodong Firearm Camp, then smuggled them to Jinling, and had someone disassemble them and carry out imitation.

Although the new-style Lumie musket was the most advanced musket in the Great Zhou at present, the technical content it contained was not something unattainable.

As long as one could understand its structure and details, and possessed a certain amount of financial resources, it was not too difficult to carry out a one-to-one imitation.

The workshop also contained complete smelting and forging facilities, unused Ottoman refined iron, a large amount of raw materials for gunpowder, nine boxes of configured musket bullets, and various molds for making musket parts.

In the eyes of laymen like Ge Ge Zhi Cheng and Liu Hai, these things might not count for much.

But when Jia Cong saw these things, he could not help but feel a chill in his heart.

The scale of this workshop, although far inferior to the construction workshop of the Firearm Office in the Love Shenjing,

already possessed a complete assembly line for constructing new-style Lumie muskets; if it were allowed to exist for a long time, one did not know how many new-style Lumie muskets would be built, and by then, he feared the world would be in chaos.

A strong sense of crisis pressed upon Jia Cong's heart; he could not even wait to escort the captured craftsmen back to the city before conducting a surprise interrogation of them.

After the interrogation, it was learned that among these craftsmen were blacksmiths, pyrotechnicians, carpenters, etc., all of whom had been hired to Jinling with high salaries.

After entering this workshop three months ago, these people were placed under house arrest and were never allowed to leave again, with more than a dozen guards watching them strictly every day.

Two craftsmen attempted to escape halfway and were mercilessly executed by the guards; since then, no one dared to escape again.

About two months ago, a white barbarian with golden hair and blue eyes named Henry came to the workshop and taught them every step of making muskets. The shopkeeper of the workshop was surnamed Zhao, who would often come to check the situation and have them work day and night to rush the production of muskets...

According to the statements of several craftsmen, thirty assembled muskets had already been transported out of the valley a few days ago; as for where they were transported, they did not know.

Ge Ge Zhi Cheng interrogated several surviving musket guards again and learned that these people were all criminals and scoundrels recruited by the workshop with high salaries, and their backgrounds were simple.

They confessed that the leader of the guards here was named Sun Sun Dacheng, and judging by his accent, he was a man from Datong in the northwest.

Just as Jia Cong and Ge Ge Zhi Cheng were preparing to escort the prisoners back to Jinling, dense gunfire suddenly came from the valley entrance; the gunfire only rang out for a few rounds before it went quiet.

Jia Cong and Ge Ge Zhi Cheng both had expressions of shock; could it be that besides these musket guards in the valley, other people were hidden nearby?

At this time, the musket team leader responsible for guarding the valley entrance ran into the valley to report to Jia Cong.

Just now, eight fast horses attempted to charge into the valley and were intercepted by the musket soldiers lying in ambush at the intersection; these people actually all carried new-style Lumie muskets, and the two sides immediately engaged in a shootout.

Six of the riders were killed or wounded and captured, and only one saw the situation and escaped on horseback.

The team leader also brought two captured Lumie muskets; Jia Cong carefully compared them and determined that they were of the same quality as the thirty Lumie muskets captured in the workshop.

He said to Ge Ge Zhi Cheng: "These seven people must have been musket guards who left the workshop halfway and encountered our men when they returned.

At this hour, the martial law on the three gates in the west of Jinling has been lifted; I wonder if this person will bypass the city to escape, or enter the city to hide?"

Jinling, Xicheng, Xiuchun Street.

The hour had already entered the night; there were few pedestrians on Xiuchun Street, and it was quiet, with the shop boards of the shops on both sides of the street already closed.

A young man walked hesitantly on the street, leaving his dark and twisted shadow on the bluestone road.

He walked all the way to a Huichun medicine shop and gently knocked on the tightly closed door boards.

After a long while, someone dismantled a door board, revealing the flickering candlelight inside, dim and obscure like ghost fire.

The person who opened the door was a middle-aged man of medium build, with a straight back and bright eyes; he was surprised to see the person knocking on the door: "Why is it you, why have you come so late!"

The person knocking on the door said with panic in his voice: "Shopkeeper Zhao, a major event happened outside the city, so I came to see you overnight."

The two sat opposite each other in the shop; the man who knocked on the door told the ins and outs of the matter, and the shopkeeper of Huichun Hall had a gloomy face: "You mean Henry was abducted, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard raided the workshop outside the city that same day!"

The man who knocked on the door said: "I really can't figure this out; Du Du Hengxin's men just abducted that Henry, why did the Embroidered Uniform Guard know the location of the workshop so quickly?"

Shopkeeper Zhao said: "Now is not the time to dwell on this matter; the Embroidered Uniform Guard raiding the workshop will discover many things.

Those nine muskets from Liaodong and that batch of unused refined iron are enough for them to deduce many things; the most urgent thing right now is not to let the matter implicate the Love Shenjing!

Fortunately, the craftsmen we hired are not locals of Jinling; although they have seen me, they do not know my identity in Jinling, so I still have some time to arrange things.

You hide in the shop for two days; I will arrange everything, and then you will return to Datong to avoid the limelight for a while."

Shopkeeper Zhao glanced at the shop, his eyes showing some reluctance, but then his expression became fierce, and he said: "This matter is already as precarious as a pile of eggs; if we let the Embroidered Uniform Guard take the initiative, the matter will be impossible to clean up.

Someone is coming from the Love Shenjing these few days; after I clean up the loose ends, I will also have to go on a long journey to purchase some medicinal materials..."

Jinling, Embroidered Uniform Guard Battalion Commander's Office, Great Prison Torture Chamber.

Ever since the Embroidered Uniform Guard escorted more than thirty prisoners from outside the Xicheng last night, the entire Embroidered Uniform Guard Battalion Commander's Office had been in a state of strange agitation.

In the gloomy and dim torture chamber of the great prison, the air was filled with a thick smell of blood.

Since last night, the lights in the torture chamber had not been extinguished, and the screams of the prisoners being tortured had rung out intermittently for a whole day without stopping.

The entire torture chamber was like a ghost realm in the underworld, making people shudder.

It was not strange for such a situation to appear; the Battalion Commander had issued a strict order to subject the prisoners captured last night to strict interrogation and torture, and they must obtain some results.

With more than thirty people being tortured in succession, the five or six Embroidered Uniform Guard captains responsible for the torture were almost exhausted, but they were still barely holding on.

Because their immediate superior, Embroidered Uniform Guard Battalion Commander Ge Ge Zhi Cheng, had not left the torture chamber since last night.

All the interrogations of the prisoners were personally supervised by this Battalion Commander.

And the main questions for the interrogation included the name and identity of the workshop owner, where the nine old muskets in the workshop came from, and whether the Ottoman refined iron seized in the workshop was related to the Zhen family.

The first two questions were still normal, but the third question already had a clear direction and guidance.

Even the few captains responsible for the torture were rough and shallow people, but they also heard that the Battalion Commander wanted to use this to implicate the Jin Ling Zhen family.

But these tortured prisoners were either poor craftsmen from other places or guards with gunshot wounds; they had not even heard of the Jin Ling Zhen family.

Even if they were later forced to confess under torture and made random accusations, their words were inconsistent; such confessions would certainly be no problem if one wanted to frame ordinary people to death.

But if one wanted to use them to deal with a powerful and deep-rooted noble family in Jinling City, it was too much of a farce.

Until the sunset filled the sky that day, four of the thirty-plus prisoners had died from excessive torture, and Ge Ge Zhi Cheng still had not obtained an answer that satisfied him.

Only from a few guards who carried muskets did he obtain some useful information.

It was said that those guards said the batch of refined iron in the workshop was sent from outside the city by the guard leader Sun Sun Dacheng.

However, some guards returned to the workshop halfway and happened to encounter the ambushing musket soldiers, and Sun Sun Dacheng was the only one who escaped in time.

Therefore, the only clue of value to Ge Ge Zhi Cheng was also a kite with a broken string.

Although Ge Ge Zhi Cheng wanted to use this case to implicate the Zhen family, follow Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao's intentions, establish extraordinary merit, and wash away the crime of Du Du Hengxin being killed,

he was not shooting without a target; based on his years of experience immersed in the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Zhen family and this private firearm construction workshop must be inseparable.

It was just that although he pulled in Guo Lin and Jia Cong this time and successfully raided the private workshop, capturing more than thirty prisoners, he still could not find solid evidence related to the Zhen family.

While this made Ge Ge Zhi Cheng frustrated, as he racked his brains for a countermeasure, he turned his gaze back to Zhen Zhen Shiwen and Haiyun Pavilion.

Although the Embroidered Uniform Guard had no solid evidence to question Zhen Zhen Shiwen, it was barely justifiable to politely invite him back to the Battalion Commander's Office for questioning.

Although doing so would inevitably lead to difficulties from the Zhen family, as well as questioning from the Jinling Tiren Academy President Zhen Zhen Yingjia,

Ge Ge Zhi Cheng had no other choice but to bite the bullet and do it.

Besides, this was not the first time Zhen Zhen Shiwen had been involved with the Embroidered Uniform Guard; the last time, it was because the Embroidered Uniform Guard and Jia Cong set up a scheme that Jia Cong was able to rescue Zhen Zhen Shiwen from the Battalion Commander's Office in time.

But this time, Zhen Zhen Shiwen was entering the palace for the second time, and Ge Ge Zhi Cheng believed that Jia Cong would absolutely not intervene again.

Regarding the private firearm manufacturing workshop, he had dragged Guo Lin and Jia Cong into the water; on the grounds of righteousness, the other party could only stand on his side.

Jinling, Xicheng, Xiuchun Street.

A stone's throw away from the Huichun medicine shop, there was an exquisite two-courtyard small residence.

As night fell, a young man with gorgeous robes and a handsome face walked to the courtyard gate and knocked gently.

Before long, someone opened the courtyard gate, and a fifteen or sixteen-year-old maid came out; her figure was slender, but her appearance was somewhat mediocre.

Seeing the man, she said happily: "Third Young Master, you're here; please come in quickly."

The man nodded at the maid, seemingly turning a blind eye, and stepped into the courtyard.

A look of disappointment appeared on the maid's face, and she turned to close the courtyard gate.

This courtyard was a private residence privately set up by Zhen Zhen Shiwen; a few months ago, while socializing at Hongyu Tower, he accidentally met the red songstress Yu Niang in the tower.

This songstress Yu Niang was not only beautiful and charming in appearance, but she was also in the prime of her youth, with a graceful and plump figure, enchanting and seductive, making Zhen Zhen Shiwen unable to put her down.

So he set up this residence on Xiuchun Street and kept Yu Niang as a mistress.

At the moment, the two were in the midst of being inseparable, and Zhen Zhen Shiwen was even more infatuated; if it weren't for the strict rules of the Zhen family that forbade disciples from privately keeping mistresses outside,

he would have wished to stay here every night and linger with this delicate person.

Just as Zhen Zhen Shiwen entered the inner courtyard, Yu Niang, dressed in colorful clothes and with gorgeous makeup, stood leaning against the door, smiling and welcoming him.

Zhen Zhen Shiwen's heart warmed; only Yu Niang and her maid Cui'er lived in this courtyard, and he had no scruples, reaching out to wrap his arms around Yu Niang's slender waist and leading her into the room.

Yu Niang was all smiles, having the maid Cui'er bring the wine and food that had been prepared early, and the two laughed and drank together in the room.

The refined iron stored in Haiyun Pavilion some days ago had finally been taken away by someone, and that clever fire had cleared Zhen Zhen Shiwen of any suspicion, leaving the Embroidered Uniform Guard unable to find the slightest fault.

This allowed Zhen Zhen Shiwen to put down the heavy stone in his heart.

He had always been constrained in business by his cousin, but his father had already sent a letter to the Love Shenjing, and he heard that the marriage between his third sister and Jia Cong was about to be completed.

Once that troublesome third sister married into the Love Shenjing, the Zhen family's business would all belong to the first branch, and eventually, it would become his own possession.

Outside the window, the crescent moon was curved, and under the lamp were beauties and fine wine; Zhen Zhen Shiwen was full of pride.

Yu Niang was quite sensible and kept persuading him to drink with tenderness, and from time to time, she would offer a cup with her jade cheeks; after three rounds of wine, Zhen Zhen Shiwen's drunkenness surged... (End of chapter)